Game 1 - Shipwrecked!

Well after 5 months of building and painting I finally got to put all the new terrain to use. The last month has been massively hectic with work and finishing terrain and miniatures off so I've been a little slack with the updates. However for the next week you're in for a treat, I'll be posting the commentary for the 4 games my brother and I played over the bank holiday weekend.

First Up Shipwrecked.

Our heroes:
Dr Dirk Savage: Our favourite treasure hunter returns once again bringing his brains and brawn to the fight.
Captain Wells-Robinson: A trusted companion to the doctor, the Captain brings some much needed fire power.
Jasper: The Captains loyal mutt, willing to follow him through thick and thin.

(unfortunately I've no individual pictures of the heroes as the Captain and Jasper belong to my brother and I forgot to take the shots before I left.)

The adventure starts with our poor heroes being washed ashore after their boat is shipwrecked in a tropical storm somewhere off the coast of South America.

I did a test set up about a week before we played this game and grabbed an overhead shot of the board to remind me of the layout. On the day a few bits changed but not much.

Test Set up

Final set up on the day.

Back to the adventure, our heroes awaken on the rocky shores of this unknown land with wreckage all around and a storm heading in. They much first gather up much needed equipment and head into the jungle to find cover from the coming storm. However they are not along...

The Savages Investigate

As our Heroes make their way across the rocky shoreline a number of painted skinned natives appear to investigate, they appear to be less than friendly and the captain lets them feel a little lead.

With ever increasing number of jungle warriors approaching our heroes make a dash for it. On their way they managed to uncover several of the missing crates, additional ammo, medical supplies and a shotgun were now all in hand for their adventure.

Dirk makes a run for it.

Eat Lead!

With the Dirk well out of harms way the Captain takes the opportunity to gun a few more the the jungle warriors down.

Spiked!

Jasper, excited by the new sights and smells of this foreign shore stumbles upon a dangerous spike trap. This was not to be the first time his canine instincts would let him down.

Escape...

With the natives left trailing and everyone still on their feet our heroes make their escape past some ancient ruins and into the jungle.

To be continued...

Post Game Blurb:

For the first game of the weekend this seemed to go rather well, we of course forgot a few rules and tweeked the planned game as we went along, overall the native warriors did not do a lot of damage to the heroes but with ever growing numbers it became easier to run than fight.

The only additions to the scenario I would make if run again would be a strict time limit for the heroes to reach the safety of the jungle and the the jungle warriors should have gone for capturing the heroes rather than straight out attacking them.

Dangerous Encounters

Late post again mainly due to busy weekend. This weeks main subject was some of the more dangerous markers for my next adventure. These will serve 2 purposes, firstly to be an obsticle to avoid when first uncovered and then a number of encounters will become blocking terrain and placed on the board.

Hopefully these will give the adventures some colour and excitement in an Indy Jones style.

First up are some Spike traps, very simple to make, just some BBQ sqewers cut down to size and roughtly sharpened. These were bedded into some mulliput on top of 2p pieces to give them strength and a little weight. Quick paint job then static grass, leaf scatter and some gore.

Next up are some Carved native statues, again ment for multiple uses as traps (in this case poisoned dart spitting traps) and also for markers to be clues in a later advanture.

These were made from Fimo, roughly shaped into tree trunk shapes with a little texture, baked and then the faces were carefully carved with a sharp knife. This appeared to give a better more defined look than just sculpting the faces. After carving the 1st face (back left) I decided to move towards a much simpler look for the rest. Simple paintjob along with grass and scatter once again.

I'm half tempted to add some warpaint to the faces to make them a little more fierce but am not sure yet.

The final Traps this week are some rock fall markers, to be used for collapsing temple roofs and dangerously unstable mountain sides they'll be a dangerous encounter for the heroes.

Made from left over slate and rubble that I chucked in a box after another project, they're based on 25mm round bases (mainly as I had some in a box and no 2p coins spare, I may also change these to be based on coins for confirmity)

Grey heavy drybrush paintjob along with black and brown washed and some drybrished highlights keep these fairly quick to paint.

The only other project completed this week was some wooden causeways for my swamp. These were made from matchsticks and no more nails, and nothing else. Sprayed black and drybruched with various browns.

A quick set up so you can see how I' using them, this board is around 2 foot square (actually 60cmx60cm) to give you an idea of size.

I've also had a chance to pen down some of my scenarios, for the moment I'll reveal only the titles:

• 
  
  Scenario 1: Shipwrecked!
• 
  
  Scenario 2: Escape through the Swamps
• 
  
  Scenario 3: Into the Mountains..
• 
  
  Scenario 4: An Abandoned Tomb!

Thats my lot for this week, I'm putting together some of my villains so I'll not have any more terrain ready for next week but I may have some pics of them.

p.s. Apologies for any spelling mistakes in this one, rushed writing it to get it out tonight.

Interesting New Product

Whilst browsing the wares at my usual train/model shop I came across a rather large display of newish products from Noch.

Titled Laser Cut Minis they appear to be pre coloured, precut plants. Here's some pics from the Noch site:

Priced at almost £6 a pack and according to the box they contain 8 plants so they seem a little steep. However it sparked my interest and I bought some just to find out what they were like.

I'll report shortly on what I've done with them.

Late again

Darn, Its started so well and went to pot so quickly. 2 weeks and no updates. not only that but I haven't done that much either.

Its all mainly being blamed on a weekend away and busy life..

I have managed to get a coupld of smaller projects completed and several more started so here goes:

Another set of test pieces, I was going for something a little like:

But of course since my new tables all going to be in 3x3 cm squares doing something hexagonal wouldn't work. Instead I aimed for somthing a little more like this board from Redskullz on the Lead Adventure forums

So what did I manage to come up with then? Well this:

5 Sections so far to fit in with the general multi-use theme of the rest of my terrain. Spread out this covers around 30cm x 60cm (2'x1') so about enough for half a .45 adventure board. I've another set marked up, I just got to find the time to cut out the hardboard bases.

So added to some of the previous sets what does it look like?

Well rather like this, the heroic Butch Sullivan is modelling in the picture for scale.

The extra bits are farily simple grassy areas:

Just hardboard, a bit of sand and static grass, grid is drawn on with a green sharpie pen afterwards. I've really just made these to give a bit more of an overgrown impression to the other terrain, part of the trouble with making generic squared terrain is that it can be difficult to make it feel right.

So I already mentioned working on a few little projects so I'll give you a couple of WIP shots of my somewhat busy desk:

The main 2 projects for this week are:

A set of 8 (only 4 carved so far) jungle totems, keeping them fairly simple for now, when painted I'll prolly add some warpaint effects to make them a little fiercer. This are to represent various encounters the heroes come across.

The other project is also a set of encounter markers:

This time its 10 spike traps, though I think I'll make some more later. All my encounter markers are going to be based on 2 pence coins to make it clear what are encounters and what are not during the game.

What else have I got lined up?

• 
  
  Props kit for sewer system (lengths of piping, pipe corners, girders etc)
• 
  
  Wooden Causeway (5-6 straight lenght plus coners, T-Junctions and cross roads)
• 
  
  Some more weeping trees (see the set up picture above for some test examples I made a while back)
• 
  
  Some rocky/uneaven hill sides to butt up against the formers, this time with slopes and steps to climb.

So I've enough to keep me busy for a while yet, I'm aiming to run some test games of my re-worked rules sometime at the end of march allowing me April to play around with them and finish up projects ready for my gaming weekend with my brother at the beginning of May.

Well thats it for this week, catch you all next week (update may be on Monday as I have family round over the weekend.)

Don't forget to follow this blog for updates.

Oops, A day late once again, Apologies to anyone who checked by yesterday. I finished up quite late at night and didn't have time to get any photos done.

However I have some now:

3 new risers, 2 are 3 levels high and the last just 1 level high. Each level comes out at 30mm tall to give you an idea of scale.

A test batch of ruined walls. These were build with off cuts of the Foamed PVC and embossed styrene that the blocks are made of plus some polystyrene to bulk then out and some bricks shopped from more spare Foamed PVC. The tesxture is a mix of PVA, Fine sand and filler with some extra rubble thrown in for good measure. I'm really happy at how these turned out so I'll be makeing some more when I have the chance.

Some Test Rock faces. Overall fairly dissapointed by the look of these, this wasn;t quite what I have in my head when I started them but then I've always struggled with makeing decent rock faces. I may trial a few more techniques over the coming weeks to try and get some better ones.

So the total scenery so far this year is shown here with some jungle I made last year. Considering I've got about 4-6 hours hobby time a week at the moment I'm fairly happy with my progress.

A final close up with Indy again to show scale.

So whats in store for this week?

Well I'm now out of Foamed PVC and some of the embossed styrene so although I may make some more ruined walls I'll most likely not finish them this week. I'm also out of a fair amount of paint and getting low on Glue I feel a sneaky trip to the store coming on.

What I have found is a load of Hardboard cut offs which I'm trimming down to make greenery bases so I can mark out the edges of area terrain (forest, jungle etc) These are going to be fairly basic and mainly just add grid marks to the floor. I've also got a 2'x2' board primed grey so I may have time to mark out the grid and add a few more grey/brown shared to it.

I also have my Wargames Factory Zulus sat on my desk. These are to be turned into jungle tribesmen so new weapons are needed plus wooden face maskes etc.

On the bargain side I was in Asda tonight and spotted Watchmen and District 9 for £7 each (they also had moon, public enemies and underworld 3) with the missus scowling I just grabbed the 2 for now but that should keep me entertained this week.

Any how I'll hopefully see you all next week.

Right then, only a day late and I've finished painting my first set of Terrain for my new pulp tables.

Below are the blocks shown last week in various layouts. The driving force behind this terrain is flexability rather than reality.

So whats next?

Time to turn these rather uninspiring blocks into all sorts of interesting terrain. This week it's going to be rocky outcrops, mainly to hide some of the bricked edges these are for purely aesthetic purposes.

So I'll see you next week with more

Week 3 - Sunday 7th Feb

Epic Fail today..

Nothing new to show you today.. ran out of paint.

However picked up some more today and will have the rest of the blocks finished tomorrow night.

I also lost a lot of hobby time this week to the Cinema, managed to sneak in Book of Eli which suprised us and was rather a good film, I reccomend it to anyone who likes interesting films or post apocalyptic stuff.. good for terrain inspiration too. Also saw daybreakers, that was less than fantastic, mediocre film with a fairly poor ending.

Anyhow main update will be tomorrow night.

Week 2 - Sunday 31st Jan 2010

Week 2 over and again I've not got a lot done.

Thats the problem with having too many hobbies, its easy to get distracted.

However with a slightly fruitful weekend I've managed to get a little done on my new generic pulp terrain.

Here are the test pieces finished earlier today:

Wow..coool!! I here you cry, but what the hell are they for?

Well for things like this really:

Indy investigates a ancient jungle temple, or even:

Indy cautiously decends an ancient stairway through the mountains.

Over all this terrain is there to give height to the table rather than be stand alone scenery. Once you mix some props in with it I'm expecting to be able to make anything from sewers to ancient temples all using just one main box of terrain and a selection of "setting" pieces.

So far I've managed to build this much:

Its about enough to cover about a square foot of board with multiple levels. I've got some more 3 level high blocks in the works plus some edging blocks to allow the terrain to be used as risers for some mountain sides.

I'll also be branching out into adding some of the setting terrain now I've unpacked a lot of my bits boxes.

Any how for this week thats it.

Tune in next Sunday and I hope to have all this lot completed.

Ok week one finish:

Progress; not a lot.

Still working on sorting out my new house so not a lot of progress this week.

I have managed to start some new Pulp terrain in the form of blocky levels to be used for rail stations, underground stations, indoor ruins and temple blocks.

These are built from a rather fancy material I've found via Antenociti's Workshop called Foamed PVC, its around 3mm thick but much easier to cut than standard plasticard sheet but much stronger than foam-core. I think I'm now a fan.

Click the following link for the product:

http://www.barrule.com/Workshop/scratch%20builders%20paradise/sheet%20materials%20-%20metal%20and%20special%20materials.html

The tops and sides are being covered in embossed styrene and engraved into 30mm squares for ease of gaming.


I've 4 sections built and pieces cut for around another 4 plus some steps.

However I'm running short on styrene and only have 1 sheet of foamed pvc left so looks like I need to stick an order in for more.

I plan to have the whole lot built by next sunday so watch this space.

2010... The beginning

New house, New Job... Old hobby...

On the flip side its about time I started to really get my head down and get some stuff sorted. Too many projects, too many mad ideas and not enough time.

2010 is the year of the plan.. Honest

Projects for 2010:

Pulp
Indiana Jones style tomb raiding pulp miniatures.

• New miniatures:
• Ze Germans
• Cairo Crowds
• Jungle natives
• Cairo constabulary
• Pirates

New pulp locations:

• Jungle Temple
• Rail Station
• Sewer
• Museum
• Docks
• Warehouse
• Library
• Boat Deck

Extras:

• Encounter Card Set
• Clue Card Set
• Encounter Markers
• Traps

Sci-Fi Battlesuit combat
8 foot combat suits, bristling with weapons to fight it out in detailed skirmish style urban combat.

Battlesuit combat miniatures (conversions/scratch builds)

• 4 Heavy Suits
• 4 Medium Suits
• 4 Scout Suits

Battlesuit combat rules (only about 2 years in the writing but I will finish them one day)

So just 2 projects to start the year on.

I'm going to try very very hard not to stray, money is tight which may actually be a bonus so we'll see how it goes.

Oh only last promise I'm going to make this year:

• Regular Blog updates - Every Sunday